War and Peace (102 page)

He suffered from an unlucky faculty—common to many men, especially Russians—the faculty of seeing and believing in the possibility of good and truth, and at the same time seeing too clearly the evil and falsity of life to be capable of taking a serious part in it. Every sphere of activity was in his eyes connected with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he took up, evil and falsity drove him back again and cut him off from every field of energy. And meanwhile he had to live, he had to be occupied. It was too awful to lie under the burden of those insoluble problems of life, and he abandoned himself to the first distraction that offered, simply to forget them. He visited every possible society, drank a great deal, went in for buying pictures, building, and above all reading.

He read and re-read everything he came across. On getting home he would take up a book, even while his valets were undressing him, and read himself to sleep; and from sleep turned at once to gossip in the drawing-rooms and the club; from gossip to carousals and women; from dissipation back again to gossip, reading, and wine. Wine was more and more becoming a physical necessity to him, and at the same time a moral
necessity. Although the doctors told him that in view of his corpulence wine was injurious to him, he drank a very great deal. He never felt quite content except when he had, almost unconsciously, lifted several glasses of wine to his big mouth. Then he felt agreeably warm all over his body, amiably disposed towards all his fellows, and mentally ready to respond superficially to every idea, without going too deeply into it. It was only after drinking a bottle or two of wine that he felt vaguely that the terrible tangled skein of life which had terrified him so before was not so terrible as he had fancied. With a buzzing in his head, chatting, listening to talk or reading after dinner and supper, he invariably saw that tangled skein on some one of its sides. It was only under the influence of wine that he said to himself: “Never mind. I’ll disentangle it all; here I have a solution all ready. But now’s not the time. I’ll go into all that later on!” But that
later on
never came.

In the morning, before breakfast, all the old questions looked as insoluble and fearful as ever, and Pierre hurriedly snatched up a book and rejoiced when any one came in to see him.

Sometimes Pierre remembered what he had been told of soldiers under fire in ambuscade when they have nothing to do, how they try hard to find occupation so as to bear their danger more easily. And Pierre pictured all men as such soldiers trying to find a refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, some in the government service. “Nothing is trivial, nothing is important, everything is the same; only to escape from it as best one can,” thought Pierre. “Only not to see
it
, that terrible
it
.”

At the beginning of the winter Prince Nikolay Andreitch Bolkonsky and his daughter moved to Moscow. His past, his intellect and originality, and still more the falling off at about that time of the popular enthusiasm for the rule of the Tsar Alexander and the anti-French and patriotic sentiments then prevailing at Moscow, all contributed to make Prince Nikolay Andreitch at once an object of peculiar veneration and the centre of the Moscow opposition to the government.

The prince had greatly aged during that year. He had begun to show unmistakable signs of failing powers, sudden attacks of drowsiness, and
forgetfulness of events nearest in time, and exact memory of remote incidents, and a childlike vanity in playing the part of leader of the Moscow opposition. But in spite of that, when the old man came into the drawing-room in the evenings to tea, in his wig and fur coat, and on being incited to do so by some one, began uttering abrupt observations on the past, or still more abrupt and harsh criticisms on the present—he aroused the same feeling of esteem and reverence in all his guests. For visitors, that old-fashioned house, with its huge mirrors, prerevolutionary furniture, and powdered lackeys, and the stern and shrewd old man, himself a relic of a past age, with the gentle daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman, both so reverently devoted to him, made a stately and agreeable spectacle. But those visitors did not reflect that, apart from the couple of hours during which they saw the household, there were twenty-two hours of the day and night during which the secret, private life of the house went on its accustomed way.

That inner life had become very hard for Princess Marya of late in Moscow. She was deprived in Moscow of her two greatest pleasures—talks with God’s folk and the solitude which had refreshed her spirit at Bleak Hills, and she had none of the advantages and pleasures of town life. She did not go into society; every one knew that her father would not allow her to go anywhere without him, and owing to his failing health he could go nowhere himself. She was not even invited now to dinner-parties or balls. Princess Marya had laid aside all hopes of marriage. She saw the coldness and hostility with which the old prince received and dismissed the young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at the house. Friends, Princess Marya now had none; during this stay in Moscow she had lost all faith in the two friends who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom she had never been able to be perfectly open, she now regarded with dislike, and for certain reasons kept at a distance. Julie, with whom Princess Marya had kept up an unbroken correspondence for five years, was in Moscow. When Princess Marya renewed her personal relations with her, she felt her former friend to be utterly alien to her. Julie, who had become, by the death of her brothers, one of the wealthiest heiresses in Moscow, was at that time engrossed in a giddy whirl of fashionable amusements. She was surrounded by young men, whom she believed to have become suddenly appreciative of her qualities. Julie was at that stage when a young lady is somewhat past her first youth in society and feels that her last chance of marrying has come, and that now or never her fate must be
decided. With a mournful smile Princess Marya reflected every Thursday that she had now no one to write to, seeing that Julie was here and saw her every week, though her friend’s actual presence gave her no sort of pleasure. Like the old French
émigré
, who declined to marry the lady with whom he had for so many years spent his evenings, she regretted that Julie was here and she had no one to write to. In Moscow Princess Marya had no one to speak to, no one to confide her sorrows to, and many fresh sorrows fell to her lot about this time. The time for Prince Andrey’s return and marriage was approaching, and his commission to her to prepare her father’s mind was so far from being successfully carried out that the whole thing seemed hopeless; and any reference to the young Countess Rostov infuriated the old prince, who was for the most part out of humour at all times now. Another trouble that weighed on Princess Marya of late was due to the lessons she gave to her six-year-old nephew. In her relations with little Nikolay she recognised to her consternation symptoms of her father’s irritable character in herself. However often she told herself that she must not let herself lose her temper, when teaching her nephew, almost every time she sat down with a pointer showing him the French alphabet, she so longed to hasten, to make easy the process of transferring her knowledge to the child, who was by now always afraid his auntie would be angry the next moment, that at the slightest inattention she was quivering in nervous haste and vexation, she raised her voice and sometimes pulled him by his little hand and stood him in the corner. When she had stood him in the corner she would begin to cry herself over her evil, wicked nature, and little Nikolay, his sobs vying with hers, would come unbidden out of the corner to pull her wet hands from her face and try to comfort her. But the greatest, far the greatest of the princess’s burdens was her father’s irascibility, which was invariably directed against his daughter, and had of late reached the point of cruelty. Had he forced her to spend the night bowing to the ground, had he beaten her, or made her carry in wood and water, it would never have entered her head that her position was a hard one. But this loving despot—most cruel of all because he loved, and for that very reason tortured himself and her—knew not only how to mortify and humiliate her, but of set purpose, to prove to her that she was always to blame in everything. Of late he had taken a new departure, which caused Princess Marya more misery than anything—that was his closer and closer intimacy with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea, that had occurred to him in jest at the first moment of receiving the news of
his son’s intentions, that if Andrey got married he, too, would marry Mademoiselle Bourienne, obviously pleased him, and he had of late—simply, as Princess Marya fancied, to annoy her—persisted in being particularly gracious to Mademoiselle Bourienne and manifesting his dissatisfaction with his daughter by demonstrations of love for the Frenchwoman.

One day in Princess Marya’s presence (it seemed to her that her father did it on purpose because she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne’s hand, and drawing her to him embraced her affectionately. Princess Marya flushed hotly and ran out of the room. A few minutes later, Mademoiselle Bourienne went into Princess Marya’s room, smiling and making some cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Marya hastily wiped away her tears, with resolute steps went up to the Frenchwoman, and obviously unconscious of what she was doing, with wrathful haste and breaks in her voice she began screaming at her:

“It’s loathsome, vile, inhuman to take advantage of feebleness …” She could not go on. “Go out of my room,” she cried, and broke into sobs.

The next day the old prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed that at dinner he gave orders for the dishes to be handed to Mademoiselle Bourienne first. When towards the end of dinner, the footman from habit handed the coffee, beginning with the princess, the old prince flew into a sudden frenzy of rage, flung his cane at Filipp, and immediately gave orders for him to be sent for a soldier.

“He won’t obey … twice I told him!… and he didn’t obey. She’s the first person in this house, she’s my best friend,” screamed the old prince. And if you allow yourself,” he shouted in a fury, for the first time addressing Princess Marya, “ever again, as you dared yesterday … to forget yourself in her presence, I’ll show you who is master in this house. Away! don’t let me set eyes on you! Beg her pardon!”

Princess Marya begged Amalia Yevgenyevna’s pardon and also her father’s, both for herself and the footman Filipp, who implored her intervention.

At such moments the feeling that prevailed in Princess Marya’s soul was akin to the pride of sacrifice. And all of a sudden at such moments, that father whom she was judging would look for his spectacles, fumbling by them and not seeing them, or would forget what had just happened, or would take a tottering step with his weak legs, and look round to see whether any one had noticed his feebleness, or what was worst of
all, at dinner when there were no guests to excite him, he would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking head sink over his plate. “He is old and feeble, and I dare to judge him!” she thought, revolted by herself.

In the year 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor called Metivier, who was rapidly coming into fashion. He was a very tall, handsome man, polite as only a Frenchman is, and was said by every one in Moscow to be an extraordinarily clever doctor. He was received in the very best houses, not merely as a doctor, but as an equal.

Prince Nikolay Andreitch had always ridiculed medicine, but of late he had by Mademoiselle Bourienne’s advice allowed this doctor to see him, and had become accustomed to his visits. Metivier used to see the old prince twice a week.

On St. Nikolay’s day, the name-day of the old prince, all Moscow was driving up to the approach of his house, but he gave orders for no one to be admitted to see him. Only a few guests, of whom he gave a list to Princess Marya, were to be invited to dinner.

Metivier, who arrived in the morning with his felicitations, thought himself as the old prince’s doctor entitled to
forcer la consigne
, as he told Princess Marya, and went in to the prince. It so happened that on that morning of his name-day the old prince was in one of his very worst tempers. He had spent the whole morning wandering about the house, finding fault with every one, and affecting not to understand what was said to him and to be misunderstood by everybody. Princess Marya knew that mood well from subdued and fretful grumbling, which usually found vent in a violent outburst of fury, and as though facing a cocked and loaded gun, she went all the morning in expectation of an explosion. The morning passed off fairly well, till the doctor’s arrival. After admitting the doctor, Princess Marya sat down with a book in the drawing-room near the door, where she could hear all that passed in the prince’s study.

At first she heard Metivier’s voice alone, then her father’s voice, then both voices began talking at once. The door flew open, and in the doorway she saw the handsome, terrified figure of Metivier with his shock of black hair, and the old prince in a skull-cap and dressing-gown, his face hideous with rage and his eyes lowered.

“You don’t understand,” screamed the old prince, “but I do! French spy, slave of Bonaparte, spy, out of my house—away, I tell you!” And he slammed the door. Metivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne, who ran out of the next room at the noise.

“The prince is not quite well, bile and rush of blood to the head. Calm yourself, I will look in to-morrow,” said Metivier; and putting his fingers to his lips he hurried off.

Through the door could be heard steps shuffling in slippers and shouts: “Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a minute of peace in my own house!”

After Metivier’s departure the old prince sent for his daughter, and the whole fury of his passion spent itself on her. She was to blame for the spy’s having been admitted to see him. Had not he told her, told her to make a list, and that those not on the list were on no account to be admitted? Why then had that scoundrel been shown up? She was to blame for everything. With her he could not have a minute of peace, could not die in peace, he told her.